Alt.religion.scientology Week in Review summarizes the most significant
postings from the Usenet group Alt.religion.scientology for the preceding
week for the benefit of those who can't follow the group as closely as
they'd like. Out of thousands of postings, I attempt to include news of
significant events, new affidavits, court rulings, new contributors,
whatever. I hope you find it useful. Like many readers of a.r.s, I have a
kill file. So please take into consideration that I may not have seen some
of the most significant postings.
The articles in A.r.s Week in Review are brief summaries of the articles.
Many include an excerpt, and all include message IDs for the articles I
cover. This may or may not be useful to you, depending on how long your
site stores articles in the newsgroup before expiring them.
Free A.r.s Week in Review subscriptions are available, just email me at
rkeller@voicenet.com
It is archived at:
http://wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de/~krasel/CoS/ars-summary.html
http://user1.i1.net/~mallen/scn/arswr/ars-summary.html
http://www.amazing.com/scientology/ars-summary.html
http://users.aimnet.com/~jdiver/scieno.htm
http://www.thur.de/religio/publik/arsfaq.html
#####

"Sermoner1 and AOL have put a direct link from the 'Other Religions' area
to alt.religion.scientology!!! This now eliminates the need for posting
those long instructions that usually get pulled anyway. This also should
make finding this newsgroup that much easier for fledgling AOL critics,
ex-cult members and those private Scienos who may be on the fence."

"Both firms have been notified of my decision this morning. Lerma is
proceeding Pro-Se, until new counsel is determined."

He then posted a petition to Judge Brinkema to reopen the proceedings that
she cut short by awarding a summary judgment to Scientology, and announced
that Graham Berry will be participant in his defense.

"Defendant, Arnaldo Lerma, appearing pro-se on his own behalf, hereby
requests this court ex parte to issue an order providing an immediate stay
of all proceedings herein, including but not limited to the signing and
entry of any written order of summary judgment pending the filing and
service of motions for, inter alia:

"- Reopening these proceedings; and
- The taking of further discovery herein; and
- The rebriefing and reargument of motions for summary judgment and/or
summary adjudication of issues; and
- Such further motions that the parties may file and serve prior to
September 27, 1996 and calendar for hearing on Tuesday October 22, 1996
or such other date as this court may deem proper on the grounds, inter
alia, that:
- This court has an inherent power to correct its own record at any time
prior to the entry of final judgment hearings; and
- That a grievous miscarriage of justice has occurred in these
proceedings; and
- Plaintiff has engaged in outrageous and criminal acts of interstate
conspiracy and misconduct in order to insure that defendants counsel of
choice
would be precluded from appearing herein; and
- Defendants insurance appointed counsel misrepresented its expertise and
experience, failed to follow defendants and his agents oral and written
instructions including but not limited to: Failing to convey defendants
requests for the appointment of more suitable counsel to defendants
insurance carrier; and Submitting all court filings to defendants and his
agents for review and approval before filing; and Fraudulently and
excessively 'churning' this and related litigation to the extent of over
1.4 million dollars in a little over 6 months, and failing to properly
advise defendant and his agents that the proceeds of self-liquidating
insurance was being so rapidly depleted and exhausted in this manner

"That plaintiff, its attorneys, affiliates and other agents intercepted
confidential attorney-client communications between defendants counsel of
choice, Los Angeles Attorney Graham E. Berry, Esq., and Lawrence
Wollershiem and engaged in other acts of outrageous and despicable conduct
against Graham E. Berry, Esq. on an interstate and international basis

"That Graham E. Berry, Esq. has resigned from his partnership in the Lewis
D'Amato, Brisbois and Bisgaurd law firm effective August 23, 1996 and will
become a member of the large Los Angeles law firm of Musick, Peeler and
Garrett on Tuesday September 3, 1996 and he has agreed to assume the
representation of the defendant herein and that of defendants in related
cases; and

"This ex parte request for an immediate stay of all proceedings herein,
including but not limited to the signing and entry of any summary judgment
order, is made on the grounds that the interest of justice and judicial
economy require that defendant have the opportunity, through new counsel,
to file and argue the noticed motions inter alia, that are described
herein, and in all the circumstances, not withstanding the courts prior
admonition that no further papers are to be filed herein."

Arnie also posted a filing which described the reasons for the dismissal.

"Recently, a member of the Faegre firm called Bob Penny, who is seriously
ill and impaired with multiple sclerosis, and claimed that he received Mr.
Penny's assent to withdraw from the Denver case against FACTNet for which
I serve as a Director. Mr. Penny provided a notarized statement denying
that he assented for Faegre to withdraw.

"In my declaration in support of the motions noticed herein, and with the
guidance and assistance of new counsel Graham E. Berry, Esq. I shall
provide extensive non-privileged evidence of Faegre & Benson's blatant
misconduct, negligence and disobedience, to the extreme detriment and
damage to my position in this litigation. It is not too late to undo this
detriment and damage and thus avoid the courts being burdened with further
litigation. However, Faegre and Benson has refused to take any action to
mitigate the damage their conduct has caused me.

"It is the informed belief of the Directors of FACTNet including myself
that given ample discovery, competently directed, we may document the
fraudulent transfer of Hubbard's copyrights to David Miscavige, RTC, ASI ,
Bridge Publications, and/or other entities . The Court has not been
informed about the blank pads with Hubbard's signatures used by David
Miscavige or the actual fair market value at the time of transfer, and
whether this was paid to his heirs, and how this valuation was determined.
The two individuals that I know have knowledge of this, David Miscavige
and Patrick Broeker, as well as the surviving members of Hubbard's family
are difficult to depose."

Judge Brinkema was apparently unaffected by this argument

"The Court has reviewed defendant Lerma's ex parte Request for Immediate
Stay of Proceedings. Because the Court has ruled orally on the substantive
issues of this complex litigation and is within days of issuing its
written opinion, the Request is DENIED. This civil action will be
concluded forthwith. If Mr. Lerma has new issues he wants to litigate,
that must be done in a new civil action in the appropriate forum."

The NOTS series of procedures was posted twice this week. The first was
made by the anonymous poster "Vorlon", posting from the Dutch xs4all site
as Vorlon@space.b5 (Vorlon). The posts were made in PGP-encrypted form,
and the appropriate passwords were provided within a day. The postings
were made in the following series of messages:

"Ever since Vorlon <vorlon@space.b5> reposted the NOTS on Monday, August
19, Nauta Dutilh - CoS Dutch legal representatives - are in quite a state.
Immediately after the offending postings were made, they contacted our
lawyer Bakker Schut and requested that XS4all would take measures. After
all, according to the headers of these postings, XS4all was the system
whence these postings originated.

"After some consideration, XS4all decided to cancel Vorlon's postings on
Wednesday 21. Their main reason for doing so was that after the first
posting of the NOTS, in May 1996, who signed his messages with 'Vorlon',
Nauta Dutilh sent XS4all and hacktic.utopia the copyright notices for the
NOTS, plus a statement of a notary who had compared the NOTS originals
with the posted messages. This material showed that RTC did indeed own the
copyrights to the NOTS and provided evidence that RTC's copyright had
indeed been violated by the postings of the NOTS that were done via the
utopia.hacktic remailer.

"Nauta Dutilh was not satisfied with XS4all canceling the messages. They
also requested that XS4all check their logfiles in order to find out which
XS4all user had posted the NOTS as vorlon@space.b5. XS4all answered that
yes, indeed, by studying their logs they were able to trace from which
account the NOTS had been posted, but that they were loathe to Nata
Dutilh; they would rather confer with XS4all manager Felipe Rodriquez
first, but Felipe was on vacation and could not be reached before
September.

"Nauta Dutilh then threatened to sue XS4all."

The second batch of postings were made by Zenon Panoussis, a Swede who had
maintained a web site of OT documents until it was removed by his Internet
provider. The materials were sent in the following series of postings:

In a message copied to Scientology lawyer Helena Kobrin and Dahlman
Magnusson, Zenon justified his postings.

"In my opinion, the CoS violates the right to property by extracting money
from people through deceit and the exercise of psychological coercion
(among other questionable methods). It then abuses the right to
intellectual property in order to stifle its opponents' right of
expression, the exercise of which could provide some protection against
that deceit and psychological coercion. Thus, the CoS abuses its right to
intellectual property in order to be able to violate others' right to
their material property. In short, the CoS uses such institutions of
democracy as law and law enforcement bodies in order to undermine central
values of democracy and democracy itself.

"If exercising the right of expression in a given situation can save the
rights to personal freedom and material property at the cost of the right
to intellectual property, then I think the choice is clear.

"Through this reasoning I find myself morally entitled to break the law
and violate whatever copyrights there may be by publishing the NOTs in the
interests of democracy and of all presumptive CoS victims."

Scientology attempted to cancel Zenon's posts from a news server in the
UK.

Zenon Panoussis also announced a program to sell Fishman OT documents in
printed form.

"As from now, OT I through OT VIII in the Fishman Affidavit version are
available from me as a booklet with a preface in Swedish. It is sold at
two different prices: cost price to the public and CoS price to the CoS.
If you want it, fill in and send me *the entire* form below together with
your payment.

"Alternative 1:

"I solemnly certify and declare under penalty of perjury according to the
laws of my country of citizenship, my country of residence and Sweden,
that I am not a member, employee, representative or voluntary worker of,
or in any other way associated, affiliated or connected to the church of
scientology or any church, association, company, organization or club in
any country that is in any way associated, affiliated or otherwise
connected to, controlled by or cooperating with the church of scientology
or any body that is, formally or informally, or can be considered in any
way connected to that church. I furthermore certify and declare that I do
not share any of the views, beliefs or opinions that are advocated by or
are characteristical of scientology.

"I order ____ copies of 'Operating Thetan', ISBN 91-630-4721-7, at SEK
10,00 each

"Alternative 2:

"I do not declare or promise anything and I order ____ copies of
'Operating Thetan', ISBN 91-630-4721-7, at SEK 1000,00 each, postage
included.

"Please remember that this order form is designed and meant to annoy the
CoS and nobody else."

Steve Fishman posted an email apparently offering a settlement with
Scientology. There is some suspicion that Steve may have been trolled,
since the account is not one widely known to be used by Scientologists.

"I received the following e-mail from cobrtc@juno.com this evening:

"This is a C O N F I D E N T I A L offer of settlement between Religious
Technology Center and Steven Fishman & Uwe Geertz. Making this public,
showing this to third parties, publishing it on ARS or web pages
automatically renders this settlement offer null and void.

"RTC offers to pay the sum of $100,000 jointly to Steven Fishman and Uwe
Geertz in return for the following:

"Fishman and Geertz agree to seal permanently and irrevocably the Advanced
Technology 'upper level materials' as well as all pleadings and moving
papers filed in the 'Fishman / Geertz Case'.

"Fishman and Geertz agree to enter into a gag order not to publicly speak
out against, mock, ridicule or impugn the Scientology religion and any
Scientology Ecclesiastical Organization or Secular Organization.

"Fishman and Geertz agree to waive whatever rights they have or believe
they have in light of the recent decision in Los Angeles Superior Court
holding against them in Case No. BC 122 468 and covenant never to sue,
harass, or enturbulate the Scientology religion and any Scientology
Ecclesiastical Organization or Secular Organization in the courts, the
media, or in any public forum from this day forward.

"Fishman and Geertz agree to turn over all of their legal documents held
by attorneys Ford Greene, Esq.; Graham Berry, Esq.; Lewis, D'Amato,
Brisbois & Bisgaard, Esq.; Hagenbaugh & Murphy, Esqs; Marc S. Nurik, Esq.;
Keith M. Krasnove, Esq. and Don Feldman, Esq. to the law firm of Moxon and
Bartilson on the day the settlement is paid to them in fair exchange for
all of the above. This includes documents held by Fishman, Geertz, or in
their behalf by LaVenda Van Schaick Larson, Lawrence Wollersheim, FACTnet,
or any unnamed third parties who presently have a vested interest in these
documents.

"I spoke to Dr. Geertz as well as to my attorney Graham Berry, and our
answer is that RTC is NUTS and they can take their settlement offer and
shove it up their ass. We will not sign any gag order. We will not stop
our initiative to permanently unseal the upper level materials"

The German newspaper taz published an article on the attempts by
Scientology to remove the Free Zone web site focusing on Anastasius
Nordenholz' 1934 book Scientologie.

"In July of this year the Scientology lawyers sent a fax to the American
Internet Provider 'Lightlink' (www.lightlink.com) who is hosting the
homepage of Freezone (www.freezone.org). They threatened Homer Wilson
Smith, operator of Lightlink, with legal consequences because Freezone
would violate the copyright law. Because the group, amongst other things,
is referring to a book of the German Philosopher Anastasius Nordenholz who
introduced the term 'Scientologie' more than ten years before
Scientology-Founder Ron L. Hubbard: in the epistemological work
'Scientologie: Wissenschaft der Beschaffenheit und der Tauglichkeit des
Wissens', published in 1934. Freezone is dedicating its own homepage to
Nordenholz, from which one is able to download a few chapters of the book.

"Because of 'www.scientologie.org' the Scientology lawyers contacted
'InterNIC', which is the American organization where one has to register
the Internet-Domain-Name. The Church of Scientology claims the rights to
the copyrights of the term 'Scientology' in all terms of writing and
demand that Lightlink discontinue the 'Scientologie'-page from its server.

"Bernd Luebeck, the German Sysop of the Freezone group, who is uploading
the pages from Munich to the American server says: 'We never got anything
directly from Scientology'. It seems that they want to avoid the German
legal area and therefore have gone to our provider.' Luebeck assumes the
copyright violations are legal pretense: 'There are also reports of former
members on our page who left the church.'"

Grady Ward posted a series of messages this week with some updates on his
case against Scientology.

"The criminal cult does now have a window of opportunity to dismiss their
claims without prejudice without the permission of the court or of the
defendants. They will lose this opportunity once we have permission from
Judge Whyte to re-file our counterclaims under technically more sufficient
grounds.

"The first filing failed basically because the federal law alleged to be
broken by the criminal cult (Deprivation of Civil Rights) is a criminal
offense and no right was granted (apparently) that permits private parties
to civilly sue under it."

"After a bit of nice discovery from the cult, which ought to be a blast no
matter what the results, I will move for summary judgment. I also get to
do quite a bit of third party discovery through issuing my own federal
subpoenas."

"Now Thomas R. Hogan says that he will move for my contempt in front of
Judge Whyte as a result of the recent NOTs reposting. Will he lie like
Helena K. Kobrin (the 'ho) when she promised to do the same when I filed
the titles of the NOTs, but rolled over instead?"

Johan Helsingius has been ordered to reveal the email address of one of
the anonymous accounts on the Penet server. This method was used
previously to trace the anonymous poster "AB" to the Caltech computer
system. The current case is (I believe) related to tracing the identity of
the poster of Scamizdat 3.

"Today on 22nd of August the local court of first instance in Helsinki
decided that Johan Helsingius has to reveal the email address asked for by
the Police Department of Helsinki. This has to be done within 30 days when
summoned for interrogation.

"Since this is merely a part of a case, this decision can't be appealed.
If Helsingius still refuses to reveal the info he will be repeatedly fined
and ultimately jailed for up to six months. The decisions about fines and
jail can be appealed, but an appeal won't stay the execution of the
ordered fine/jail, only a judgment of the appeals court will. The
questions about different appeals in this case are somewhat complex and
regarding the possibility to appeal it was a split decision (4-1)."

"Did you all know that the COS is handing out L. Ron Hubbard mousepads for
free? Neither did I, until they gave one to me. My friends in Chicago took
me out sightseeing, and asked me whether there were any particular places
I wanted to visit. An idea popped into my mind, and I decided that I
wanted to visit the local org to ask them if they knew this Xenu guy, just
for the hell of it. Being very helpful, my friends drove me to the org
(which is located on 3009 N. Lincoln, btw.) and parked nearby. I then
strolled over to the org and stopped, looking innocently at their window
display. Then this friendly woman started talking to me, asking me if I
knew anything about Scientology, if I knew anything about L. Ron Hubbard
or not, and so on.

"[S]he asked if I had access to the Internet. I answered 'yes', and then
she started running around the whole org, looking for one of their
mousepads (with their URLs printed on them). On seeing the mousepad, I get
these strange associations with North Korean propaganda. More than half of
the area of the mouse pad is dedicated to L. Ron Hubbard, and the rest is
divided evenly between the Scientology and Dianetics logos. Also, the
three URLs http://www.lronhubbard.org, http://www.dianetics.org, and
http://www.scientology.org are printed in their respective part of the
pad. The pictures on the mousepad are identical to the ones you will find
on those web sites."

The Perth, Australia Scientology organization has been relocated after
having vacated its former headquarters.

"The Perth Org has finally re-surfaced in what appears to be a less than
favourable building (currently basement only) with the possibility of the
upper floors after refurbishment. The shop formerly in rental of said
space was WONDERLAND OF TOYS, located in Murray street, a few hundred
metres from the Royal Perth Hospital.

"The site is as expected, in a cheaper part of town to the east but
equally distant from the central plaza, the Hay Street Mall as they were
on the other side of it."
Message-ID: <4vkjk7$1ev@basement.replay.com>

Tom Klemesrud's insurance company this week settled with Scientology for
$50,000.

"The claims against Klemesrud were settled for $50,000, an amount that is
to be paid by Klemesrud's insurance carrier. Important to Klemesrud,
himself a critic of the Church of Scientology, is the fact that the terms
of the settlement include no admission of liability on his part.

"'Settling this case was a business decision by my insurance company,'
Klemesrud said. 'I would have liked to stay in there and participate in
total exoneration, but I understand it would have been a lot more
expensive to take this case all the way through trial rather than to pay
this token amount now, and be happy with the positive results we've
achieved.'"

Tom had a letter published in the LA Times to clarify that he did not
agree to any settlement, nor sign any agreements.

"In its report of the settlement of a lawsuit between myself and the
Church of Scientology, the Los Angeles Times incorrectly stated that
'Klemesrud agreed to pay the $50,000.'

"In fact, I did not agree to this. I was forced by the threat of possibly
losing my insurance coverage to go along with my insurance company's wish
to pay this token amount and end the case.

"In no way did I agree, nor does my signature appear on any document that
I agreed to such; nor have I or will I pay $50,000 to the Church of
Scientology."

Ted Mayett posted a picket report from his ongoing attempt to get an SP
declare.

"Janne would not even make eye contact for the first 30 minutes. I walk
very close to the windows and usually look in at them. The day was
completely uneventful until Laska came out to talk to me. We said a lot
but basically I was talking to a wall. I was at a point where I was
explaining that I would rather not destroy the church when Janne came out
to get her for a phone call. She smiled and said 'you can't destroy the
church.'

"'My declare Laska, why don't I have a declare?' she stopped smiling.
You'll have one soon. 'No L, it has been a year and no declare, why?' By
this time I am not smiling also and have been moving in on her. 'Why not
Laska, you know I got the refund, you know I picket' 'well you'll get it'
'No Laska, not good enough, you know I place Xenu ads <she pauses> Do you
know about Xenu <she twitches> 'No' I let her know I saw her twitch, I let
it sink in, and all this time I've been moving in on her, I stop when I am
within arm's reach. 'ask yourself why Laska, what is wrong, why no
declare' 'and I put information on the Internet, I haven't put your names
and addresses there, but you know I know things.' This part really got to
her. She had taken out a cigarette and her hands were shaking badly,
lighting it was out of the question. She was badly shaken by now. And all
the while I am going on and on with 'why laska why' in a low deep voice
and I'm leaning into her and she is trapped and I don't let it go I just
keep on saying 'where is the declare, why no declare, why are they afraid
to declare me'

Wayne Whitley is involved in a similar one-man picket in San Francisco,
and he posted a report this week.

"One woman was perhaps taken by surprise when I suddenly showed up and she
became quite upset. She came rushing over and asked in a very emotional
tone of voice, 'Have you even read any of Hubbard's books, have you even
taken any of his courses? She points to my sign and says, ' I am really
offended by this.' I just calmly looked straight at her and said, 'You
have every right to experience your reaction towards me. I'm here just
peacefully voicing my opinion.' I waited for a response from her but she
just kind of fizzled out and had nothing more to say. She just turned
around and went back to the group that she was with.

"Within two minutes several staff members came out and started taking
pictures of me. I was a bit surprised since they already know who I am and
they already have pictures and videos of me because of the March 9th
protest. Anyway, I posed for the first picture because I wanted them to
have a clear view of the sign I was carrying.

"A short while later one of the group members starts telling funny stories
because they all started laughing really loud. They appeared to be
ignoring me or at least were trying to give me the impression that they
were.

"Just like at the mission drivers would honk their horns and give me the
thumbs-up sign or shout out their window their support. During the three
hours I was there quite a few people did stop me to ask why I thought
Scientology was a scam and to hear my story. One guy said he saw my
fluorescent green sign from across the street and said he just HAD to come
over and hear what I had to say. He said my sign really grabbed his
attention.

Tilman Hausherr posted a report on Kurt Weiland's early career in
Scientology.

"In 1975 Kurt Weiland wrote in a flyer that cult critic and protestant
reverend FW Haack had 'admitted to have printed the confession of a woman
in a sex magazine' and that he had 'broken the 8th commandment'.

"FW Haack then got a temporary restraining order, and later a permanent
restraining order prohibiting Weiland to repeat this allegation. Weiland
was also indicted and sentenced to as fine of DM 100.-. In court, he
excused himself by saying that he was 'unexperienced' because he was the
PR guy for only 14 days at that time.

"In 1976 Weiland claimed orally that 'FW Haack has no credibility because
he had broken his silence on a confession'. Weiland was sentenced to a
fine of '30 days income' (DM 750.-). He appealed; his appeal was
unsuccessful.

"In 1985 Weiland claimed that 'FW Haack had been seen with a young girl
visiting a porn movie'. FW Haack got a restraining order."

Joe from the news server Zippo posted an open letter to Scientology lawyer
Kendrick Moxon. It concerned the cancellation of Scientology spam
articles.

"Your letter to our attorney made no sense at all. We do not provide
Internet access and the info you sent in your fax makes no reference to
our servers. Perhaps this has to do with the other person we received
mail from today, who asked why their flood posts were not showing up.

"We have no interest in COS, nor do we have any desire to assist COS in
promoting or marketing their products. I have a theory, just a theory,
that COS makes all of these wacky posts to try to create cause for legal
action, and to prevent people from speaking out against the COS.

"Regardless what we despam from our servers, we do not impact news
propagation, nor do we run cancel messages to the outside world.
Apparently, the post(s) passed through our site, and propagated to other
services, which is probably what the COS legal crew was crabbing about.

"We do not honor request from COS, nor do we edit on request from COS.
Please, we may not always get it right, and we may differ in opinion, but
please don't suggest we are operating in concert with, or support of,
COS."